The Most Difficult Decision

It was Wednesday morning at @ 9:30 when I got a call from our agency.   Our first referral had been sent to our social worker at 2:30am that morning and I was completely elated to say the least.  It was quite unexpected as most of the time the special needs children are posted as a group once a month and then it is just a race for your agency to lock in a child that fits your families requests.  Anyway,  I immediately contacted Andrew and began to look over the child's file.  The little girl was 2 and 1/2 years old, and had been found by the orphanage at 9 days old.  Ok-so that right there is enough to grab your heart.  At the same time, this is a common story for orphans in China.  That way, if the parents aren't known, then they can be considered as legal orphans. In a quick review of her file, it was actually difficult to tell what her special need was.  At a glance, this little girl appeared to be healthy but to have some personality quirks that differentiated her from the other children.  Quirky and introverted would fit right in in our household.  The only thing concerning on this file in my mind was her low weight and the poor diet that was described in the report.   At this point we did not have her picture, but from the information we had, I will tell you that we were ready to give our hearts to this child-and I think that we had.

So at this, I began filling our requests for a medical review of her file done by the International Adoption Clinic here at UAB.  By @ 10:00am, I had sent the file over to UAB for an expedited review given that we really needed to have our letter of acceptance turned in by the end of the day Thursday so that it could be translated and in China within 72 hours of receiving it.  Now in order to accept the referral, you also have to have your plan for treatment of the child's special need.  So really, it is impossible to do this until you have been given results from the IAC to base your plan on.  So now we had to wait to hear from them and at the time we were expecting to hear back in 24 hours so that we would get the results on Thursday morning.  In the meantime,  we were awaiting a picture and a video (which getting a video by the way is a bonus, not a guarantee.)  The next 24 hours were excruciatingly long, and at the same time very exciting.  When we got the picture the Thursday morning (I was checking at 5:00am, it was a younger picture of her) it was absolutely beautiful. This did not help me to think objectively AT ALL!   So then it was just a wait for a phone call from IAC so that I could finish filling out my acceptance paperwork.  And I felt like a teenager waiting on a boy to call or something having my phone with me at all times.  Then, the wait only grew longer as we did not get the call until 3:00pm!  

The phone call however, was not what I was hoping for.  I keep saying "I" because of course, Andrew was at work during all of this, and that was probably the best for our relationship:) What I learned was that Dr. Chambers  (who I believe is the main founder of IAC and not only has adopted children from China, also has been treating internationally adopted children for many years and has made numerous trips to China to visit the orphanages there) had actually been to the orphanage that the little girl is from and had actually seen this particular little girl.  Her observation was that what we had deemed to be quirks, or at most a mild form of autism was actually more severe than what we had been able to tell from the report.  She described her as distinguishing herself from the other children in such a way that was beyond orphanage behaviors (sometimes termed institutional autism) that are a result of neglect.  The doctor I spoke with also said that her small head size-which was not even on the growth chart was also a red flag of significant neurological issues with development.  We should be prepared for continued therapy and the possibility of learning disabilities that would interfere with judgement, and the ability to be live independently.   Another factor working against her was her age.  An autistic or mentally delayed child who is born into a loving family can still make a lot of progress with therapy given that the crucial time for neurological development happens within the first 3 years of life.  Without proper care and attention, even a healthy child's brain suffers and does not develop normally.  Most adopted children require extra time and work at their development because of this reason.  So in this little girls case, she had experienced what the doctor described as "anti-therapy," given that this orphanage was neglectful due to the caregivers simply being overwhelmed with the number of children to care for.  Wow, not the report we were expecting at all.  The first thing I did was call Andrew at work and tell him all that I learned.  Originally we were going to have our acceptance ready by the end of the work day on Thursday, but given the difficulty of the decision, we were able to extend that time until Friday morning.  Still, only hours to make such a life changing decision.  

Looking back now, I can see that although we have thought much about different medical conditions, how we were going to work hard at attachment, adjustment, and development with our child, we had not given this type of special need enough thought to be prepared.  And in checking our records, autism was not a special need that we had marked and turned in to Villa Hope as one we would accept-although from the orphanage report, true autism was not a clear diagnosis.  

Anyway, from 3:00pm to 9:00pm, I do believe was the most intense emotional time I may have ever experienced.  If you can just imagine,  you have been on an emotional high for the past 24 hours, expecting to have an official match with your child.  I know that getting hopes up is not wise, but it is hard when you are desiring to know them so much, and knowing this could be the one.  So then, add a time crunch and the necessity to think clearly (impossible), and two biological children who are needing help with homework, needing dinner, and a van that needs to be dropped off at the shop to this time period!  I am writing this, because I want to remember this part of our journey.  I know God gave us this experience for a reason-maybe so that we can encourage someone else, but I know for sure that it is part of His way of strengthening our desire for the child that He has for us.  

I can remember telling Andrew a few times that he would ultimately have to make the decision.  I couldn't do it.  I couldn't think.  I could only feel.   Now here is the part, where I know that those of you who have been praying for us came in.  Andrew was talking about discerning God's will, apart from an emotional response and apart from rationalizing the decision.  The decision had to be a result of the peace of God   Isaiah 30:21  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 
Out of the blue, Andrew thought of an analogy that helped us think clearly come to a conclusion.  We thought what if God were to take us to one of these orphanages filled with children-hundreds, thousands of children, and then told us to "choose one."  How could we possibly?  But that is exactly what we must do.  Choose one.  It was this analogy that made us realize that no matter what type of special medical need our child will have, the one thing that we know we do want to have is a relationship, a close relationship with her, and we want our boys to love her, to interact with her, and we want to leave ourselves with the open possibility of adopting one more girl, if God would have it.   According to the information that we had, it seemed that accepting this little girl would make all of that a likely gamble.  So by 9:00pm, we made it official that this precious, beautiful, loved by God little girl would not become ours.  It was the most painfully, excruciating decision we have ever made.  I woke up this morning around 3:00am and could not sleep.  Everything was surreal.  Did we really just say no to a child?  I would have never imagined it.  

As the day has went on, we have had however increasing peace over this.  Looking back over the orphanage report in a less emotional state, the signs appear to be much clearer.  The statement that the little girl did not play much with the other children seemed now to make much more sense,  and we knew she would need much more of our time and attention than we actually have to give in order to see her make progress.  

Still, our hearts ache for her, but we know that there are still many other children who are in dire need of forever families and that we will find ours very soon.  We will pray continually for this child, that God would stir the heart of another family who is prepared  to seek her out, and it is amazing to see the variety of special needs that He does call families to seek out, and they do it intentionally.  We have met some of them on this journey.  But we can only chose one-at least at this time.  So we also pray in general, that God would stir the hearts of His people, to awaken more hearts to adoption and foster care according to His lead.  

Follow up and Two Amazing Adoption Videos!

I wanted to follow up with the previous post just to say that Andrew talked to our agency and got a much clearer picture of what is going on.  Villa Hope is transitioning to a new and hopefully more efficient means of providing matches for families.  I won't go into all the details again of why we were confused and what all goes into the matching process, but we are relieved to gain better understanding. I will also tell you that my God is way too sweet to me.  On Wednesday morning in my Bible reading (I am still in Isaiah by the way-which I LOVE!) a verse just leaped off the page and I knew it was God's way of restoring my peace and joy throughout this waiting period.  Now I will also tell you that the context of this verse is referring to the the end of times when God will restore and establish all of His people, including those of Israel who turn to Him and they will enjoy His everlasting light forever, once and for all delivering them from sadness and oppression.  (So at this I must ask-do you belong to Him through faith in His son?)  Anyway, so you get the point-the context of this scripture is not Andrew and Amy's adoption:)  But, the truth applies to all things that are from God and according to His purpose:

Isaiah 60:22  "I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it."

I was reminded that the timing and choosing of our daughter is not dependent on the "process" and agency uses, but on the working of God.  

I also wanted to share with you two amazing China adoption videos of some friends and friends of friends that we know.  I think you'll really enjoy these!


Greer Family Adoption


Thomas Family Adoption


And for the grandparents:)

2nd Grade Living Museum-Steve Jobs 

Bud's Best Cookie Company

Children's Theatre

Amy

Longing sets in....

Yesterday was a particularly emotional day for me-as proof of that, (aside from my first cry associated with the emotions that come with the adoption process) I am finding various items misplaced all over my house,  and my 2nd grader was sent off to school with David's preschool folder.  It was the day after the February group of  special needs Chinese children who were eligible to be adopted came in.  To make a long story short, our adoption agency (which we have had a wonderful experience with so far, and to which we felt God had led us) has had some changes in employees that have affected us.  The social worker in charge of the China program resigned shortly after we began this process and being the small agency that they are (and another reason we were drawn to them) were left with no "expert" in the China program.  So the assistant director, who specializes in Latin American adoptions has been working with us-and doing a great job considering she has had to learn some along the way as well.   So anyway, originally, they way the process was going to work is that the social worker over the China program would serve as our advocate in finding our child.  She would be the one to actually look at the children available for adoption who were sent in to the agencies.  The way that normally works is that there may be a few children who trickle in throughout the month (usually Special focus children I think), but a larger group is posted once a month.  And China being a full 12-13 hours difference time than we are, this happens over a night (usually our Monday night) and the social worker literally engages in a race during the night against other agencies to lock in a child that is a fit for your family.  Then, the family has 72 hours to have the child's medical history reviewed and to accept that child (accept the referral).  So as you can see, the process itself is quite suspenseful. 

Anyway, just days before this happened, we were told that now a social worker who is on the ground in China will be looking for our child because they can log them in faster.  Which is fine and seems logical.  However, Tuesday morning, we found out that we had not received a referral and not only that, we did not receive any feedback as to what kind of children were in the group, or any type of reason why we could not be matched.  We were basically told we'd have to wait and see if we could be matched at the end of next month.   We were not expecting to receive so little information about why a match could not be made.   So anyway, I won't continue to record all of the details of conversations we had yesterday-but we were left feeling like the process was leaving us at the mercy of a detached advocate.  One we have no access to and who has never met us (though we know who our true advocate really is:).  Andrew is going to seek clarity on this today, and I am sure things will settle out with this issue.  But I was not prepared for the influx of emotion that I felt when I got the news (and in the manner that we got it mainly) that no match or even a child to consider had been made.  Before I had been excited and anxious, but now I feel like I have had a little dose of what families who have had much longer waits than we have have experienced.  I know now that there will be an ache in my heart that will only become stronger as this process continues.  We have been praying that God would prepare our hearts to receive our daughter and that we would know beyond a doubt who our daughter was the minute we first saw a referral.  I wasn't expecting it to come like this, but I know somehow that this process is part of the very means that God is using to do just exactly what we have asked.

Romans 6:26-27  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

Amy

The Most Wonderful Name and (prayers please!)

I would like to start this post by saying that I hope and pray that this is the last post I will write without a face to go along with a name.  We begin next week to receive our first referral for a child and we do ask for your prayers.  I have loved the process of choosing a name for our beautiful daughter.  I will say that we chose the name at first simply because we like it-but I have loved researching the meaning as well and I have loved what we found (if in fact our sources are reliable-but we'll just say that they are:)

According to Babynology.com both Kailyn and Mari are of Hebrew origin and means the following:

English : Kailyn "pure"

Hebrew: Kalin "devotion to God",  Kayla "Who is like God?"

Hebrew: Marie "wished for child" (also "bitter or rebellion" which we'll just throw out:)

The verse that we chose "Every good and perfect gift is from above" James 1:17 on the picture above was chosen as a reflection of our feelings about Kailyn and the whole adoption process, as well as because it is a timeless truth that we hope Kailyn will find true in her own life.  Everything that we have that is eternally valuable, and is truly and wholly good (not in a health, wealth, property kind of way), can only be from God.  We pray that she will soon see that God is the giver of all things good.

It is truly amazing what God does in your heart when you follow the leading of His spirit.  As I have begun to think more and more about the upcoming travel and stay in China and about one of the initial challenges of international adoption (language barrier!-which by the way has been fun trying to learn a few words and phrases-heaven help the people of China and Kailyn:), along with that has grown in my heart a compassion for the people of China.  Now I have known for a long time that China-being the most populous country in the world (approximately 1.3 BILLION people, comprising 20% of the world's population) also has a majority of this massive population that have never heard of Jesus-the most wonderful name there is. And though the church is miraculously spreading in China (if you know much about this country's government you will understand why I say miraculously)  to about 100,000 million believers in 2010, out of 1.3 billion there is still so much need for the light of the gospel to shine.  I don't know what kind of sharing opportunities we may have while in China, -maybe none verbally (I plan to ask more about this), and we don't want to jeopardize the adoption-but I do know that in my heart is a desire that could only be placed by God to go there and allow His love and His light shine brightly through our lives to the people we will come in contact with there.  And as in most of my posts-I leave you with my current favorite song of the moment, which I hope - speaking of names- will remind you of the the one who has the most wonderful name there is.

Acts 4:11-12  This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name  under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Your Great Name by Natalie Grant

Amy